The moon reaches its farthest point from Earth tonight, known as apogee, making it appear ever so slightly smaller in the ...

but if one looks to the southwest in the evening on Jan. 31 one will see the young moon – a thin crescent still – will be just visible above the southwestern horizon, below and to the right of Saturn.

And be sure to get outside after sunset tonight (Feb. 1). For that evening a lovely crescent moon will appear to snuggle up close to Venus, particularly for skywatchers across the Western Hemisphere.

As New Year’s Day fades, a young moon hangs in the southwest near Venus and Mars. And as the sun sets on the last day of January, a young moon again visits the planets, this time coming much closer.

This vision is known as Earthshine, sometimes called "the old moon in the young moon's arms." Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first to recognize it as earthshine. In da Vinci's Codex ...